The surprising origins of 9 favorite Christmas songs

By Andrew Dansby

on December 19, 2012 3:16 PM

Photo: Sammy Cahn

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Here Comes Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
"Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)" is only cowboy singer Gene Autry's second most popular holiday song, but he had initial misgivings about the other one associated with him, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Autry said he was riding his horse Champion during the annual Christmas parade in Los Angeles in 1946 when he heard a child in the crowd yell, "Here comes Santa Claus!" He filed that phrase and the following year began to draft a song that his music partner Oakley Haldeman would further develop. The song's success ensured Autry was pitched dozens of holiday songs, which is how "Rudolph" came to his attention. He wasn't interested, but relented at his wife's insistence. Like many Christmas songs written at the time, the song also has some surprising Jewish origins. Here Comes Santa Claus
Composed: 1947
Written by: Gene Autry and Oakley Haldeman
Recorded by: Autry, Elvis Presley Destiny's Child, Glen Campbell, Mariah Carey, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bing Crosby, the Carpenters, the Platters, Dwight Yoakam, Jerry Jeff Walker, Los Straightjackets, the Chipmunks, the Smurfs and others
Great version: Bob Dylan (2009): Admittedly Dylan's torched croak of a voice isn't the smoothest one to grace this song, but his arrangement is zippy and he sounds like he's having fun.
Version you may have missed: .38 Special (2001)
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"Composed: 1947
Written by: Johnny Marks
Recorded by: Autry, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Dolly Parton, Harry Connick Jr., John Denver, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Burl Ives, Perry Como, Willie Nelson, Neil Diamond, others.
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Here Comes Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
"Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)" is only cowboy singer Gene Autry's second most popular holiday song, but he had initial ... more

“Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow”
Lyricist Sammy Cahn wrote the lyrics, and composer Jule Styne wrote the music on a sweltering day in Los Angeles in 1945. Cahn suggested one July afternoon that he and Styne go from Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles to the beach a few miles away to escape the heat. "He said, 'Why don't we stay here and write a winter song,' " Cahn told Paul Zollo for his book "Songwriters on Songwriting." "I went to the typewriter. 'Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, and since we've got no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.'" The song was a hit for singer Vaughn Monroe the following year, and it quickly became a standard.

Do You Hear What I HearNoel Regney had seen the horrors of war up close, so years after he fought in World War II, he and his wife wrote a song urging peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Regney's earnest and elegant lyrics about spreading word about the birth of Jesus and wife Gloria Shayne's patient and ornamental music make the composition sound decades older than it is. The complete history of the song, including the couple’s subsequent breakup can be found at houstonchronicle.com.

Composed: 1962
Written by: Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne
Recorded by: Andy Williams, Mahalia Jackson, Whitney Houston, Bob Dylan, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Carrie Underwood, Jim Brickman, Mannheim Steamroller, Anne Murray, the Carpenters, Robert Goulet
Great version: The Polyphonic Spree (2012): The old crooners all do right by it, but there's a whispery fragility to this new version that charms.Version you may have missed: Sufjan Stevens (2009)

Do You Hear What I Hear
Noel Regney had seen the horrors of war up close, so years after he fought in World War II, he and his wife wrote a song urging peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Regney's earnest ... more

Photo: AP

Do You Hear What I Hear
Noel Regney had seen the horrors of war... Photo-3561900.54125 - Houston Chronicle

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Feliz Navidad
Among the more modern holiday classics is a song void of imagery written by a blind guitar whiz. "Feliz Navidad" is bilingual but fairly simple in both English and Spanish. Its writer and original performer, José Feliciano, says the song took him about five minutes to write. Feliciano never thought the song would be a hit.

Composed: 1970
Written by: José Feliciano
Recorded by: Feliciano, Celine Dion, David Hasslehoff, Moby and Dyanna Lauren, Spyro Gyra, Fenix, TX, Dora the Explorer
Great version: Feliciano (1970): The refrain is joyous and infectious and the horns are a great kick.
Version you may have missed: Billy Joe Shaver and Flaco Jimenez (2005) less

Feliz Navidad
Among the more modern holiday classics is a song void of imagery written by a blind guitar whiz. "Feliz Navidad" is bilingual but fairly simple in both English and Spanish. Its writer and ... more

Photo: RCA Records, Stringer

Feliz Navidad
Among the more modern holiday classics is a song... Photo-3895206.54125 - Houston Chronicle

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The Christmas Song
Wintery imagery in "The Christmas Song" - like that of "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" - was a way of taking its writers' minds off of a hot summer day.
Mel Tormé was not yet known as the Velvet Fog - he was just a 20-year-old aspiring singer from Chicago - when the future legend worked on the song with his writing partner Bob Wells. In his autobiography, "It Wasn't All Velvet," Tormé recalled driving to Wells' home in the San Fernando Valley in California in July. He walked in and went to the piano, where Wells' had written the first verse on a note pad. He recounted Wells saying: "It was so damn hot today, I thought I'd write something to cool myself off. All I could think of was Christmas and cold weather." Nat King Cole turned the song into a financial success.

Composed: 1945
Written by: Mel Tormé and Bob Wells
Recorded by: Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Aaron Neville, Rick Nelson, Aimee Mann, Big Bird, Garth Brooks, Christina Aguilera, Justin Bieber, Chicago, Celine Dion, Josh Groban
Great version: Nat King Cole (1946): The strings are a playful touch, but Cole's voice could carry this alone: velvety and just a whisper behind the beat. (Note: the no-strings version performed by Cole's trio is also wonderful.)
Version you may have missed: Hootie and the Blowfish (1997) less

The Christmas Song
Wintery imagery in "The Christmas Song" - like that of "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" - was a way of taking its writers' minds off of a hot summer day. Mel Tormé was not yet ... more

Photo: HO

The Christmas Song
Wintery imagery in "The Christmas... Photo-3860461.54125 - Houston Chronicle

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Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Few paid attention to Darlene Love's holiday masterpiece at first because it had the ill fortune of being released on Nov. 22, 1963, when the nation's collective mind was obviously elsewhere. In this respect the song mirrored Love's own career, which eventually received the recognition it deserved after years of bad breaks and one overbearing collaborator. The song’s renaissance transformed Love from a cleaning lady to a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

Composed: 1963
Written by: Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector
Recorded by: Darlene Love, Dion, Michael Bublé, U2, KT Tunstall, Death Cab for Cutie, Hanson, Mariah Carey, the Raveonettes, Lady Antebellum, others
Great version: Darlene Love (1963): The Ramone version below is excellent, but Love's original is the gold standard.
Version you may have missed: Joey Ramone (2002)

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Few paid attention to Darlene Love's holiday masterpiece at first because it had the ill fortune of being released on Nov. 22, 1963, when the nation's collective mind was ... more

Winter Wonderland
"Sleigh bells ring, are you listening/In the lane, snow is glistening/A beautiful sight/We're happy tonight/Walking in a winter wonderland." Richard B. Smith wrote those lines while dying of tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Pennsylvania, according to a history blog run by the Albright Memorial Library in Scranton, Pa. Eight years after Smith's death "Winter Wonderland" became a canonized holiday song thanks to a version by the Andrews Sisters and Guy Lombardo. Smith died at 34. Felix Bernard, the New York native who composed the music for the song died at 47 in Los Angeles. How the writer’s impending death might have influenced the lyrics at houstonchronicle.com.

Winter Wonderland
"Sleigh bells ring, are you listening/In the lane, snow is glistening/A beautiful sight/We're happy tonight/Walking in a winter wonderland." Richard B. Smith wrote those lines while dying of ... more

White ChristmasBorn in Tyumen, a Russian village not far from Siberia, young Irving Berlin was no stranger to snow. But like the authors of other famous holiday songs, he was living in warmer confines — California, specifically — when he wrote “White Christmas,” arguably the most enduring and popular secular holiday song of the 20th century.Berlin, in fact, wrote an introductory verse about a shining sun, green grass and swaying palm trees in Beverly Hills, though virtually every recorded version of the song since Bing Crosby made it a hit in 1942, begins not with “the sun is shining …” but rather “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.”Composed: 1940Written by: Irving BerlinRecorded by: Elvis Presley, the Drifters, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond, Darlene Love, Barbra Streisand, Crash Test Dummies, Lady Gaga, Rod Stewart, Cee-Lo Green and many, many othersGreat version: Bing Crosby (1947): The master recording of Crosby’s original 1942 version was damaged so he re-recorded what became the most circulated version five years later.Version you may have missed: Bob Marley and the Wailers (1965) less

White Christmas
Born in Tyumen, a Russian village not far from Siberia, young Irving Berlin was no stranger to snow. But like the authors of other famous holiday songs, he was living in warmer confines — ... more

Photo: Chronicle File

White Christmas Born in Tyumen, a Russian village not far from... Photo-1447786.54125 - Houston Chronicle

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Merry Christmas From the FamilyRobert Earl Keen's "Merry
Christmas From the Family," which was released
in 1994, is the youngest entry in this
series. It's also the least sentimental song of the bunch, offering a
movie's worth of imagery - much of it from the Quik-Pak Store - that
contrasts with the usual romantic visions of Christmas. Some of the
song's roots can be traced to a tree stump in Hermann Park. His father
used to go to city parks to cut down Christmas trees. less

Merry Christmas From the FamilyRobert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas From the Family," which was released in 1994, is the youngest entry in this series. It's also the least sentimental song of the bunch, ... more

Photo: Insight Mgmt

Merry Christmas From the Family Robert Earl Keen's... Photo-1406558.54125 - Houston Chronicle